Former World Superbike Champion Sylvain Guintoli brushed off a crash on day two of testing at Phillip Island and says that although he is pleased with his lap-times so far, more work needs to be done on pace over race distance.
The Pata Yamaha man ended the test in fifth place on the new R1 and less than half a second slower than quickest man Tom Sykes.
"A good two days here at Phillip Island, the test has been really constructive. I've tried lots of solutions that are working well - we ended up getting closer and closer to the leaders and ended up topping the last session so that felt good! I had a small crash at the end but nothing to worry about,” said Guintoli.
“The pace was really good and I felt comfortable, probably a little bit too comfortable, but in the end it was all good. I'm looking forward to the weekend now, it will be good to get struck in and do some racing! This track really suits the character of the YZF-R1, the bike is fantastic to ride here - with the change of direction and the long, fast corners - it's really sweet and efficient to ride.
“It's really important for our work for the first two races now not to just concentrate on one-lap pace - as Phillip Island is a very long and demanding lap on the tyres - but we've done a good job so far. As for the crash I really needed to get that out of the way as I hadn't crashed at all during the winter tests in November and January so I needed to have one and that's done. Now we're ready to start racing.”